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Published: February 12th 2011
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Just heard there was an earthquake in central Chile yesterday. We are still hundreds of miles to the south, so knew nothing about it. In other words, we are fine.
We called at a tiny port called Puerto Chacabuco which is about 8 miles from the larger town of Puerto Aysen. The river that flows between the two used to be navigable, but a recent volcanic eruption made it too shallow. So now all shipping -- including us -- must go to the tiny port. We took the local bus to Aysen (about $1), standing all the way even though a sign clearly indicated no standing was allowed. Also liked the sign that I interpreted as "Bothering the driver can be fatal." It was not a scary ride because we just followed the riverbed, but interesting to be squished in with the locals -- who chat on their cell phones, just like at home.
The town itself was not the least bit touristy. It had one long main street with every imaginable kind of shop including a surprising number of grocery stores. The produce looked wonderful, as it should here where so many of our fruits come from! We
liked wandering among the locals going about their daily business. Their pride and joy seems to be the orange suspension bridge that connects the two sides of town. We walked across it in hopes of finding some local handicrafts on the other side (nope!) so I got to test my new relationship with heights again. We sat on the bus back, waiting 10-15 minutes for it to leave when the locals suddenly all got up and off. The driver said, "Other bus," so the rest of us got up and got on the bus that had pulled up behind us. That one eventually started up, but first drove all the way down the main street (a mile?) and back down a side street, so we got another nice tour of the town.
It was a surprisingly warm day, maybe close to 80, which is extremely rare for this area. Today we are at an island called "Castro," but since it is pouring rain, we are waiting until later in the day to go ashore, if we go at all. It is a tender port, so kind of a hassle going in.
We had the International cocktail party for
this leg last night. Only two Americans, me and a sad-looking Texas woman. We sat with a Scottish couple who were invited in error because the husband had accidentally checked the Burundi box (instead of British) when he filled out the online form. They were getting a good laugh out of it, especially since he is a very fair redhead. Fred. Olsen was really pushing the drinks at this affair. We had three glasses of wine and would have had more if we hadn't declined. We figure they must have gotten a great bargain while we were in Argentina. (The prices on wine in the grocery stores here are amazing, about $1.50 a bottle!)
After dinner last night we sailed past this mountain that looks just like Mt. Fuji. Isn't it beautiful?
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james st. james
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mysterious sign
hello. great to see minnesotans in chile. that brown sign indicates an area with handicrafts and similar traditional items for sale. chileans would know it to be an outline of an earthenware figurine, holding a guitar. there is a town near santiago called pomaire which specializes in earthenware items, and figurines like this are symbolic of these earthenware items.